Securing the Environment: UESD’s Dream Come True

The Background:                   

Once upon a time, Ghana was well endowed with natural resources, ranging from coastal flats plains through mountains to evergreen forests and savannahs. These varied geographic settings have brought both challenges and opportunities for natural resources management and development. In addition to these geographic complexities and challenges, poverty is pervasive in the country.  

Addressing the connection and ramifications between poverty and the environment remains one of the main problems of the country with the increasing environmental degradation. Issues such as deforestation, soil erosion, pollution, and loss of biodiversity call for prompt attention and the need for specialized institutions to address these challenges through education and research. In Ghana, the change in forest cover reveals that between 1990 and 2000, the country lost an average of 135,400 hectares of forest per year, which amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 1.82%. Additionally, between 1990 and 2005, Ghana lost 25.9% of its forest cover, or around 1,931,000 hectares (Ghana Environmental Profile). It is estimated that the consequences of current environmental degradation result in about a ten percent (10%), annual reduction in the potential economic growth (GDP) of Ghana. Deforestation and health costs related to environmental pollution (sanitation, indoor air pollution) are major contributing factors. 

The well-being of a nation thrives on efficient and sustainable management of natural resources; however, climate change and its impacts on various sectors cause havoc to the environment which feeds into an attempt to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There was therefore the need to establish a specialized university to provide education and research in areas such as sustainable agriculture, water resource management, and renewable energy, contributing to better resource stewardship.

To address and alleviate local and global challenges, there is often a need for informed and effective environmental policies involving the local communities in sustainable development initiatives. A university focused on environmental studies can contribute to policy development by producing research, experts, and professionals who understand the complexities of sustainable development. This university should be situated in a particular region to actively engage with local communities, addressing their specific environmental concerns and collaborating on sustainable development projects.

It is incumbent on the nation to train a new generation of professionals with the skills and knowledge to tackle issues related to the environment and sustainability. It was therefore imperative to establish a university dedicated to environmental and sustainable development that can collaborate with other institutions, organizations, and researchers globally, fostering a more comprehensive approach to addressing environmental issues that confront the nation. Hence, the birth of University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD).

The Conception of UESD

The UESD was conceived on the 17^th of April, 2013 when the then President of Ghana, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama inaugurated a national task force/ planning committee, which later became known as the Dr. Christina Amoako-Nuamah committee, that led to the establishment of a public university to be situated in the Yilo Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region of Ghana, West Africa. The aim was to address the critical environmental and sustainable development challenges of the country

Subsequently, in 2015, the Act establishing the University of Environment and Sustainable Development, UESD Act, 2015 (898) was passed by Parliament to set up a Public University to be sited at Somaya and mandated to primarily provide training in basic biological, physical, and mathematical sciences, agricultural and environmental sciences and environmental design and architecture.

Vision: To be a Centre of excellence in knowledge gathering and dissemination in the area of environment for public good.

Mission: To produce graduates who are equipped with relevant knowledge and skills to be agents of change in environment and sustainable development.

Our Core Values:

• H – Honesty
• O – Opportunity
• P – Perseverance
• E – Enterprising

The idea behind the UESD core values which has been acronymised HOPE (Honesty, Opportunity, Perseverance and Enterprising) was the Vice Chancellor’s vison to give hope to the next generation.

Honesty– To produce young people and staff members who will be honest in their attitude to work.

Opportunity- Opportunities abound in the world. As an institution, there is the need to look out for opportunities to make the University an ‘’equal opportunity institution’’ so that people can create and take advantage of opportunities and make use of them. A lot of young people say, there is no opportunity, but the Vice-Chancellor envisages a time when the training received at UESD will equip students to be able to take up opportunities and make use of them.

Perseverance – The Vice-Chancellor’s guiding principle is for one to try again if one does not succeed at first. His assuring words to staff reveal: “This is where we are, we will move forward. If we persevere, we shall succeed”.

Enterprising – The need to take advantage of opportunities to earn a living is at the heart of the Vice Chancellor. This desire emanates from his background as a Career Counsellor which inspires his Ph.D. thesis topic “Entrepreneurial careers for young people”, a study to equip young people to cultivate the mindset of an entrepreneur.

These four core values were translated into a HOPE Roadshow to inculcate these values in the staff and students, such that, as an institution, our culture or way of life will be measured against the HOPE core values.  A UESD STAFF AND STUDENT SHOULD EXUDE HOPE.

The Birth of UESD

The UESD is a multi-campus institution with the main campus situated in Somanya and a satellite campus to be sited at Donkorkrom, in the Afram Plains, both in the Eastern Region.

Following the change of government, the newly appointed Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in April 2020, appointed three key officers: Prof. Eric Nyarko-Sampson, as Vice-Chancellor, Mrs Mary Abena Agyepong, as Registrar and Mr. Baffour Awuah Kwabi, as Director of Finance to quick start work at the University. These officers were later sworn in at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Culture, Ridge Accra, in the Capital.

The current President, H.E Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo later nominated six persons to serve as members of the Interim Governing Council Members for UESD, with Chairman as Prof. Jonathan Narh Ayertey, a retired University Professor who later commissioned the University on the 5^th of August 2020.

The UESD Journey

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nyarko-Sampson recounts the journey of UESD which started its operation in April 2020 at the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) building. Not despising the humble beginnings, the team accepted an office space where they temporarily worked after their official appointment. Eventually, the three-member team recruited two staff members of GTEC and some interns to assist them. Before the team moved to the Somanya campus, they used to pick letters from the Somanya Post Office to their office at GTEC where both the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar practically participated in sorting these letters and packing them into boxes.

Not long after, the appointed time came for the team to move to the Somanya campus. When they got there, the Vice Chancellor’s hopes nearly became shattered on seeing the bushes and the quite secluded place. He questioned his own decisions; he asked himself why he had made such an impulsive decision of accepting to become the Vice-Chancellor of an isolated place that looked empty and bushy, as compared to his previous University, a reputable institution that has been in existence for more than sixty years, with all the facilities and resources.

Now, the reality began to hit him as he pondered over questions such as: “Whom to go to?” “What to do?’ “Those to work with?” that kept lingering on his mind. When he turned to look at his two other colleagues, he did not see them in the right frame of mind. Therefore, he had to quickly swallow his disappointment to inspire his team and ginger them up with assuring words: “This is the place. This place must work”; hence, the slogan, “UESD must work” became his mantra, anytime he addresses the staff or students.

Staff Recruitment

In September 2020, the Ministry of Finance granted financial clearance to the University to recruit three hundred (300) staff members of all categories and this coincided with advertisements for admission of students. More than twenty thousand applications for employment were received. Interview panels/committees made up of retired professionals from the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and experts were constituted and three hundred staff members were recruited in the first phase.

Prof. Nyarko-Sampson perceives the recruitment period as one of his significant moments in setting up the UESD campus. This is because of the sacrifices of the ‘helpers’ who contributed significantly to championing this vision. In most cases, these ‘helpers’ had to work throughout the night till dawn and report to work at 8 a.m. Knowing the benefit of a university in the community, the local people also played their part by offering to weed around the campus and they were later joined by janitors.

Student enrolment

The success story began to unfold as the University started receiving its first batch of prospective students’ applications. One hundred and forty (140) applications, facilitated by GTEC (then NCTE) and the advertisement by UESD in the national dailies (Daily Graphic and Times Newspapers) for admission into eleven undergraduate programmes for the 2020/21 academic year were received. In all, seventy-eight (78) applicants qualified as the first batch of students at the maiden Matriculation held on Friday, 26^th February, 2021 into the following programmes:

1.BSc. Biological and Mathematical Sciences

2. BSc. Chemistry and Biological Sciences

3. BSc. Chemistry and Mathematical Sciences

5. BSc. Chemistry and Physics

6. BSc. Environment and Public Health

7. BSc. Environmental and Sustainability Science

8.  BSc. Geography and Earth Science

10. BSc. Biological and Mathematical Sciences

11. BSc. Water Resources Development

Commencement Lecture

One significant vision of the Vice-Chancellor was the institution of a Commencement Lecture to herald the beginning of an academic year. His objective is to select topics that address the mandate of the University, including environment, and sustainable development, among others, and experts in those fields are brought in to espouse such topics. At the First Commencement Lecture, a seasoned professor from the Department of Plant and Environmental Biology, University of Ghana, Legon, Prof. Alfred A. Oteng-Yeboah spoke on the mandate of the University to nurture young people to take charge of the environment. The subsequent ones were on climate change issues: in 2021/22 academic year, the speaker Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spoke on: “Securing the Environment: The role of the University in mitigating climate change” and in the 2022/23 academic year, the guest speaker was Rev. Dr. Ing. Appiah Duah, a water resource consulting ground extraction and treatment. He spoke on “Securing the Environment Water, Our Future”.

UESD Engagement with Stakeholders

Another important vision of the Vice-Chancellor was to establish partnerships with industry leaders and research institutions. For the past three years, the University has signed about forty (40) Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) to collaborate with organisations, institutions, and agencies both internally and externally.

The University with its three years in office, has had a good working relationship with its stakeholders in the communities. The Vice-Chancellor and his team have worked closely with the chiefs and other opinion leaders as well as the churches, farmer groups, radio stations, CSOs, and NGOs. The university taps their expertise by inviting them to seminars and workshops to serve as resource persons. In the Municipalities, public, private grammar, and technical schools, the University presented the gown to the people where the Vice-Chancellor, accompanied by some Deans and Heads of units visited some Senior Schools in the Municipality to explain the vision and mission of the University to them. Other staff members also participated in Education Fairs organised by schools in and around Somanya enclave.

UESD has made its presence felt in the communities surrounding the university through its Community-Based Learning (CoBEL) programme, where level 200 students embark on community engagement, to live with the people and profile the history and activities of communities for five weeks.

Despite the challenges associated with a young university like ours, UESD is on its way to achieving its objectives. This is because, in our three-year-old journey, we have gained accreditation to run twenty (20) academic programmes, a significant increase in the initial number of eleven (11). See list of programmes below:

1. BSc. Sustainable Development

2. BSc. Environment and Public Health

3. BSc. Environmental and Sustainability Science

4. BSc. Geography and Earth Sciences

5. BSc. Energy and Resource Economics

6. BSc. Water Resources Development

7. BSc. Energy Sustainability

8. BSc. Chemistry and Biological Sciences

9. BSc. Mathematics

10. BSc. Biological and Mathematical Sciences

11. BSc. Environmental Economics and Policy

12. BSc. Aquaculture Management

13. BSc. Water Resources Management

14. BSc. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

15. BSc. Environmental Management

16. BSc. Nature Conservation Management

17. BSc. Chemistry and Physics

18. BSc. Urban Planning and Development

19. BSc. Physics and Mathematical Sciences

20. BSc. Chemistry and Mathematical Sciences

ACHIEVEMENTS

This transformative journey has witnessed the establishment of a state-of-the-art research auditorium, books, and cutting-edge laboratories, equipped with the latest technologies. Also, the University has gained visibility considerably and was ranked 20^th out of eight (88) universities in the 2023 webometrics in terms of impact.

In academia: Two (2) teams of the University’s Lecturers, Dr. Sam-Quarcoo Dotse and Dr. Lloyd Larbi, both of the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences (SNES) were among twenty-six (26) recipients of the Jospong Group of Companies Africa Environmental Sanitation (AfES) Fund Awards held on 4^th March, 2022. Dr. Larbi’s research topic “Implementation of Sustainable Waste Segregation and Recycling Programme in Educational Institutions in the Krobo Municipalities of Ghana” will boost UESD’s Community Engagement.

Again, three (3) Lecturers from the School of Sustainable Development (SSD) are the winners of the Korea Safety, Health and Environment Foundation’s Global Seed Grant 2023. The three, who are members of the Smart Environmental Networks Africa (SENA) are; Dr. Kwaku Adu, Department of Applied Economics, Dr Eunice Stella Nyarko and Dr. Kwame B. Bour, both from the Department of Built Environment School of the School of Sustainable Development (SSD) were chosen among twenty-six (26) teams from fifteen (15) countries including Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.  Further, the University was adjudged the ‘Public University of the Year 2022/2023’ in Ghana at the Ghana Education Awards by the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS).

The University has made significant progress with initial intake of Seventy-Eight students for the 2021/2022 academic year to One Hundred and Twenty-Nine (129) for the 2022/2023 academic year to Three Hundred and Forty-Four (344) for the 2023/2024 academic year. The student population stands at Six Hundred and Fourteen (614) at the end of December, 2023.

Looking Ahead

As the years go by, the University of Environment and Sustainable Development will continue to grow with more success stories.

UESD IS SUCCEEDING!

Co-authors:                  Ms. Barbara Mary Yakubu (Head, University Relations)

                                      Dr. Mrs. Felicia Annin (Ag. Head, RICU)                          

Acknowledgment:       Prof. Edward Wiafe Debrah (Ag. Pro-Vice-Chancellor)

                                      Mrs Rose Nandaara Fanu (Head, Human Resource Division)

Editor-In-Chief:          Prof. Eric Nyarko-Sampson (Vice-Chancellor)